If too much sitting and standing are bad, can Yoga help?
You may know someone who swears by the benefits of Yoga, or you may have even tried a class or two for yourself. One thing is for sure, the adoption of Yoga is growing, and Yoga is here to stay.
Yoga is over 5,000 years old, and the word Yoga comes from Sanskrit and means union. This union has proven both true and successful, with the number of Americans practicing Yoga growing by over 50% in the last four years. With tens of thousands of yoga teachers, four times as many schools, and billions of Instagram posts, Yoga continues to engage and deliver. Research shows Yoga's health benefits can delay the aging process.
Yoga has proven helpful not only to the masses, but professional basketball, baseball, and football players have also adopted Yoga into their training regimens to rehabilitate, prevent injury, and increase flexibility along with strength. Perhaps it's time we stay at homers adopt Yoga to combat the pains and stiffness from sitting too much or standing too long.
Why do some say that sitting is the new smoking? Well, too much sitting can slow your metabolism down, compromise posture, and lead to back and spine injuries, obesity, increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, and excess body fat with elevated cholesterol levels.
Well, the problems with sitting are enough to make anyone run out and buy a standup desk during the pandemic. However, standing too much also does not come without its own set of challenges. Standing too much can lead to inflammation of the veins and cause joints in the hips, knees, spine, and feet to become stiff and temporarily immobilized or locked.
One thing is for sure is that our bodies were made to move. A good balance between sitting and standing while working can help your body stay flexible and not become too stiff in any one position you may be in for too long.
So for all of us that have been transplanted from being out and about into living and working from home, a few gentle seated yoga stretches might do the trick to help us work from homers avoid the pains and throes of sitting and standing for too long.
Seated Twist
The seated twist is a restorative spinal twist that opens up the hips and stretches the chest, shoulders, upper and lower back. It helps improve spinal mobility, opens up the hips, improves posture, and can alleviate neck and upper back pain.
Seated Twist
Seated Prayer Twist
Seated Prayer Twist
Like the seated twist, the seated prayer twist is also restorative and provides the same benefits, yet a bit deeper, strengthening the core and stretching the thighs, glutes while massaging the organs.
Seated Forward Fold
The seated forward fold is excellent for relieving stress while stretching your spine, shoulders, and hamstrings. It stimulates the liver, kidneys, ovaries, and uterus, and like the seated twists, improves digestion.
Seated Forward Fold
Seated Pigeon (Figure Four)
Seated Pigeon
The seated pigeon, also known as figure four, focuses on opening up your hips, providing mobility and flexibility in your hip joints. In addition to stretching out your hip flexors, it also stretches your lower back that can become tight from lengthy sitting.
Seated Cat-Cow
Seated Cat-Cow stretches increase circulation between the vertebrae, relieving back pain. This purposeful pose is well synchronized with breath and can benefit both your mind and body by relieving stress. The Cat-Cow stretch may seem easy, but the benefits are impactful. It can power up your brain and improve concentration, coordination, and cognitive stability.
Seated Cat-Cow
If you find that the gentle seated Yoga stretches help you, you may also get the Yoga bug and adopt a complete Yoga practice and flow into your routine.
There are over 100 different types of Yoga, to name a few Hatha, Ashtanga, Vinyasa, Bikram, Iyengar, Kundalini, Restorative, and Yin.
Hatha yoga is a system of physical exercises and breathing control. Hatha means the discipline of force. Hatha focuses on deep knowledge and management of the body to reach a state of spiritual embodiment. Through diet, purification, and postures known as asanas, Hatha can help you exercise and develop strength, flexibility, relaxation, and mental focus.
Ashtanga yoga is athletic and challenging, following a set sequence of poses. It can increase your endurance and flexibility while helping you to focus. The flow is invigorating, and it challenges you to stay present throughout the sequences. Ashtanga is known to help you burn calories and lose weight, reduce stress and food cravings, and increase your mood and self-esteem.
Vinyasa yoga is like Ashtanga yoga, but Vinyasa does not follow a set sequence, it flows to a wide variety of poses, and no two classes are ever alike. The ever-changing poses and flow of Vinyasa can help you stay present, focus, develop more balance, and prevent repetitive motion injuries.
Bikram yoga consists of 26 poses and two breathing exercises practiced in a hot room set to 104℉. The goal is to increase flexibility, detoxify by sweating and make your cardiovascular system work harder to keep cool while helping you to focus and lower stress. Bikram can positively impact blood lipids, glucose tolerance, and insulin resistance and reduce cardiovascular disease and diabetes type 2 conditions.
Iyengar yoga focuses on the alignment and precision of your postures. Yoga blocks, bands, blankets, and cushions help your body achieve the poses and ultimate posture.
Kundalini yoga adopts chanting and song with deep breathing sounds and movements. Kundalini helps you practice moving your energy upwards from your spine out through your head. It enables you to stimulate your chakras, improve health, mood, and focus while lowering blood pressure, stabilizing your metabolism, and helping you sleep longer.
Restorative Yoga integrates props with poses to assist and support the body as it rests. It increases flexibility and helps your muscles become more easily manipulated.
Yin yoga is a slower practice like restorative Yoga that lengthens the muscles, facia, ligaments, and tendons. Yin helps you slow the body down by activating the parasympathetic nervous system, allowing the body to relax and fully release physical and mental stress.
It is too easy to jump into our computer and smartphone screens or check social media one more time, becoming locked into submission. Let's remember to alternate between sitting, standing, and stretching with Yoga, not forgetting the benefits and, most importantly, taking care of our minds, bodies, and souls. Let's unlock our best selves and continue our best lives not yet realized.
